The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a bid to block Delaware’s prohibition on assault-style rifles and large-capacity ammunition magazines, as well as a challenge to Maryland’s handgun licensing requirements, sidestepping two cases involving the divisive issue of gun rights.
The justices turned away an appeal by a group of gun enthusiasts and firearm advocacy groups of a lower court’s refusal to issue a preliminary injunction against the Democratic-led Delaware’s ban on “assault weapons” and magazines that can hold more than 17 rounds. Such weapons have been used in numerous mass shootings in the United States.
The justices also rejected an appeal by a gun rights group called Maryland Shall Issue and other plaintiffs of a lower court’s ruling that upheld the state’s licensing law as permissible under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
While the justices declined to hear these two cases, the court did not act on two separate appeals involving challenges to Maryland’s ban on assault weapons and one in Rhode Island on large capacity ammunition magazines.
The Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, has taken an expansive view of gun rights in major rulings dating back to 2008.
Delaware’s gun safety laws, enacted in 2022, ban various semi-automatic “assault” long guns including the AR-15 and AK-47 but allow those who owned such weapons before the law to keep them under certain conditions. The measure prohibiting large-capacity magazines applies to those devices owned before the law took effect.